The right to bear arms?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "orionaut"
> > I'd have to look at data on those nations' out-of-wedlock
> pregnancies
> > and youth-onset STDs before I'd grant you that "better."
>
> Hurry :) Go look. The sooner more people drop the "Just Say No"
> philosophy and recognize teen-age sexuality the sooner the
hypocracy
> can stop and lives and philosophies of citizens can recognize
> reality rather than double standards.

"Just Say No" IS a reality for many teens. And it is not even on yhe
mind-map for other, culturally impoverished teens.

Dunno 'bout you, Tango, but the way i raised my own offspring
was: "Sex is like fire: Used wisely, it will heat your home and cook
your food. Used unwisely, it can AND WILL burn your house down. Now,
the Human iDEAL is to mate only with the person to whom you are
wililng to make a lifetime commitment. But despite our best efforts,
sometimes we Do act irresponsibly and irrationally where sex is
concerned. WHEN THAT HAPPENS in your life -- and here's hoping that
it won't! -- it's important to be both medically knowledgeable and
practically prepared for 'safer sex. That will minimize the
logistical fallout. But please don't EVER kid yourself that
irresponsible, immature sex is free of emotional/psychological
fallout, and may very well interfere with your ability to form
lasiting, mature romatic relationships as an adult."

I was not raised this way -- was raised on "Just Say No, PERIOD" --
and I was hell on wheels as a teen where sex, drugs and alcohol were
concerned. Injecting a little REALISM into the morality play staged
for my son, however, has produced a young adult (he'll be 23 next
week) who has NEVER ONCE indulged in drugs or alcohol, and is happily
married to the first woman he ever slept with.

It's easy to live with our own moral failures as long as we can
convince ourselves that "everyone" shares them. Tango, with this in
mind, the needed "rethinking" you suggest might not be quite so one-
sided as you might care to believe.

> Look to the evidence in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries on
> teen-age sexuality

Are you aware that these nations coercively extract up to 80% of the
earned income of their own natives(!) in order to force a monolithic
vision of "no better, no worse, only different" down the throats of
their own citizens....? I such a culture, OF COURSE secual license
runs rampant...and the horrific rrsults on the back end are obscured
by the governments virtually unlimited power to fund "solutions."

Exzample: I personally am in favor of damn-near unlimited abortion
rights. But just TRY telling a sincere "right-to-lifer" that state-
funded abortion on demand --- one way the Nordic nations you extol
deal with unwanted teen preganncies -- is a legitimate "solution."
Would you REALLY capriciously deprive that right-to-lifer of the
right to believe what he or she believes, and to teach his or her
children likewise?!

> How can you say that these
> features of American teen sexuality promote conventional ethics of
> sex, reproduction, and family relationships?

Didn't. I said the way things are now is a result of the pervasive
destruction of those very values by the radic alrelativist cult
of "there is o better or worse, only different."

If I may hijack the original promotion for the film _Alien_:
"In space, thank goodness!, no-one can hear you dare to make a value
judgement" ;) -- spike